


Nothing's Quite the Same Now

by cricket_aria



Category: Saints Row
Genre: F/M, GoH Remake Earth Ending, Not Agents of Mayhem Compliant, canon AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 11:59:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13053564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cricket_aria/pseuds/cricket_aria
Summary: Johnny tried not to let himself get too excited, but he was pretty sure he knew the only woman who could have become such a powerful crime boss in this remade world.





	Nothing's Quite the Same Now

**Author's Note:**

  * For [koanju (verstehen)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/verstehen/gifts).



> Please just totally ignore that AoM reveals that Brimstone isn't The Boss (...or that playing as a male Boss would also have made it obvious I guess, lol).

There was absolutely no reason to get excited, Gat had been telling himself ever since he got the call to come down to the station. No reason to think this wasn’t exactly what it looked like; a gang boss either got a little too sloppy or had let herself be captured to set them up for some type of fall. No reason to have stopped to shave off his five o’clock shadow before heading into the station, or change into a shirt that Kinzie had once told him he was not allowed to wear at work because everyone of the right inclination ended up distracted by his pecs in it.

But, the thing was, most of the time the world he was in kept the shape of the world he’d come from. God had shaken things up when he’d rewritten the world, people—people Gat _cared_ about especially, the old beard in the sky apparently thinking it’d be a fun show to watch him have to hunt for the folks he wanted around in his life—might end up doing their things in different places then where he tried to find them, but the big shit stayed more or less the same. The same gangs fought over the town, and Ultor was working on making its rise. Those people he’d been able to find were still doing the same _type_ of things, at risk of falling into the same type of screw-ups before he took them under his wing. When there were big shifts in the pattern of the world he could always follow the cause back to his own actions, as he tried to save old allies who needed saving or punish shitheels before they became big enough to raise hell.

 _Except_ for Brimstone. Her gang, her rise, were something new in this world. Unless, and it was this unless that he rested every fucking hope in his heart on, the quick rise and loyalty of what members of her crew they’d managed to snag pointed towards her being the one person he knew could win a city that way. Hell, if it were a few years later he’d be sure it was her, the only thing that gave him doubts now was that at this point in her life she hadn’t been that person yet. She’d been an attack dog when Julian had brought her in, plain and simple, and if anything was even wilder after coming out of her coma. He’d liked that about her, had never met anyone he had more fun rampaging with, but he could recognize that even though tearing through rival gangs wouldn’t have been an issue staying under the radar the way Brimstone had would have been beyond her.

For it to be her, she’d have had to have hooked up with someone more into the sneaky shit this time around, someone who either taught her subtlety or played tactician to her. Hopefully not fucking Dex, otherwise she wouldn’t know him long before Johnny was gonna need to come up with a way to explain why he’d punched her partner’s head off.

For it to be her that someone would also have to be able to actually get her to listen when they told her to hold back, and that seemed even harder to buy. He had some fond memories of watching his fellow lieutenants trying to convince her not to bust heads when they’d set up some greater plan; it was possible, but when she’d been as young as she should be now it had also inevitably lead to her going out to find something on the streets to fuck up. He’d never even heard a peep about Brimstone causing that type of random carnage.

So he tried to tell himself not to get excited, and had himself so braced for disappointment that he hadn’t even readied himself to keep a straight face when he looked through the one-way glass and saw her sitting there. Kinzie gave him a look when she saw his grin, only to flash one of her own when he said, “Turn off the cameras.”

“In a fun mood today, Lieutenant? I might have a thing or two in my trunk that could help.” 

“You seriously just drive around with your kinky shit in the car?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

“Hey, you never know when they’ll come in handy,” she said with a shrug and a wink. “Wouldn’t want to be caught without the right toys for my type of fun if the right person comes around.”

“As entertaining as gossiping about Kinzie’s lack of a sex life might be for everyone,” Matt said, grimacing at their conversation, “you should get in there, Lieutenant. Get started before she thinks to ask for a lawyer.”

“Yeah, I do need to get in there,” he said, gaze darting back through the window to her, glad his shades would keep them from seeing how the look lingered. “But… listen, you two are on my team, right? Whatever you see in there, I can trust you to have my back?”

“Is there some type of grudge here you haven’t told us about, Gat? Do you plan on getting _that_ rough?” Kinzie asked with a frown, then shrugged though her expression didn’t smooth out. “You know I’m only here because you pulled me in. Do whatever you think you need to, if they try to drop you from the force I walk.”

“And I hardly even have a choice,” Matt piped in, “I’m fairly sure anyone else would actually care if I were transfered under their command and they noticed my date of birth. I doubt whatever strings you pulled to hire me in will still matter if you’re gone.”

Not a rousing display of loyalty, but considering “hiring” him had involved Gat blackmailing him with information on his hacker activity that he’d had Kinzie dredge up he was pretty sure the kid would sound more bitter mentioning it if he actually had an inclination to defect. Anyway, he’d more than once mentioned being glad Gat had dragged him fully to the white-hat side before he’d gotten into things deeply enough that he’d have been thrown straight to the courts if caught instead of being offered a deal.

“Right, just keep that in mind. Wouldn’t want to lose either of you.” Not when they were finally about to meet the person he’d been keeping them under his wing for. That set, he turned and pushed open the door.

He’d braced himself for the pain of looking down at her and having her not know him. He had absolutely _not_ been ready to have her look up at him and clearly _recognize_ him.

He might have felt a little embarrassed at how goofy he suspected the grin spreading across his face must look, except that she looked, if anything, even more wild with glee when she realized that he knew her as well.

Then her chair was clattering onto the floor and she was in front of him in a second, her hand smacking hard into his chest. He heard Kinzie shout at her through the room speakers, not realizing just how obviously she was pulling the force of the blow, and he barely had the presence of mind to hold up a hand to signal her not to come in or call for backup.

“Gat, you absolute ass, you know how hard I had to search for you? Why the fuck’d you go and become a cop?”

“What’s that you’re going for now, Italian?” he asked, trying to read her accent. 

“That’s seriously the first thing you have to say to me?”

“What can I say, I’m glad you’re still so cagey about your past that you won’t even let us figure out what country you’re from,” he said with a chuckle, backing up a step to finally get a good look at her. Nothing much had changed since the last time he’d seen her, but that had been a whole damned lifetime ago and it would take him a good long period of staring before his eyes got their fill of her again. “If you’ve actually let anyone know where you come from this time around I might just throttle them.”

“Damn, Johnny,” she said, shaking her head at him mockingly chiding, “Threatening my parents out of jealousy? Not the best way to start things back up here.”

“If anyone knows for sure whether you actually still have parents or not I’ll throttle them too.”

She chuckled and reached out to cup a hand behind his ear and lean in close enough for her lips to brush the lobe as she whispered, “Mom’s still around. Dad was in a car accident when I was four. Couldn’t manage to stop it, didn’t remember the exact day to try sabotaging the car before he could go out.” As she fell back her head turned towards him and for a second he thought she was going to fall into a kiss, but she jerked slightly and just let herself drop back instead, and pressed him back when he tried to lean in after her. Then she just rolled her eyes at him as if nothing had happened. “Damn, Gat, you could always have just asked if there was something you wanted to know. If there’s anyone in the universe I’d give a straight answer to it’ll be you. Just don’t really see what it matters, you already know _me_.”

“Excuse me for interrupting,” Matt’s voice came dryly through the intercom, “but exactly what is going on here, Lieutenant?”

From the way her face lit up even brighter than ever Johnny could tell that his team hadn’t gotten there yet when she was brought in. “ _Fuck_ , Matt, that you? You’re still doing your Nyte Blayde shit, right? That shit’s still yours, no matter what this universe says.”

They just heard a moment of Matt stammering and Kinzie delightedly exclaiming “ _Nyte Blayde?_ ” with a laugh before the intercom clicked back off.

“Kinzie too?” she asked, her eyes fixed on him.

“Yeah, those two were pretty easy to find. Got Troy too, can’t say that I really _want_ him but he was already here so might as well get him on our side. Set him to talking up the idea of writing a book to Ben King, see if we can’t get him back into retirement even without the shit that happened last time. Oh, and you’ll like this one, I caught a couple brothers before they could get too deep into into any of the gangs out there, use them in carding stings around town and keep them far away from fuckers in monster trucks.”

“You got Carlos for me?” she said, with a rare softness in both her voice and her eyes.

Johnny shrugged off her gratitude. “The kid’s still a dumb little shit sometimes, but I figured you’d be happier if his face didn’t end up ground into hamburger this time around.”

“I got Lin,” she said, voice hushed like she was confessing something amazing. “ _Never_ gonna let her infiltrate anything. Found Shaundi and Pierce pretty easily too, and…” She paused, her face twisting, and smacked him again, “God damnit, Johnny, why the fuck are you a cop? I looked _everywhere_ for you. Spent my whole fucking life looking for you, but never thought to check the other side! Then suddenly I spot your picture in the papers last week for busting Veteran Child!”

Johnny ran his fingers through his hair with a grimace. “Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s not like it’s something I _wanted_ to do, but, c’mon Boss, how else could I find anyone? That isn’t the sort of shit I’m good at, I ain’t Shaundi, with a friendly ex on every corner hunting info down for me, or like one of those two,” he jabbed his thumb back toward the two-way mirror, and the watchers on the other side, “who can make a computer tell ‘em anything they want. Figured if I wanted to have a chance in hell of finding anyone the best way would be if I had access to the police’s databases. Though I never expected _you_ to go and change your name. What the hell is this Brimstone shit about?”

“Eh, figured I could show some gratitude to my little almost wifey,” she said with a shrug. “Jez is the whole reason I’ve still got myself in my head. When the world started rewinding she realized what was happening and worked some kinda hellish mojo to keep my memories from going with it.” Then she sighed and stepped backward, continuing until she could sit against the edge of the table behind her. “Listen, Johnny, there’s one thing I’ve gotta tell you before we do anything else.”

“Is it you and Lin?” he asked, following her closely, not wanting to put any real distance between them. “Is that why you pulled away a minute ago? ‘Cause I won’t say I won’t be disappointed, but it’s not like it’ll be a big fucking surprise to anyone.”

“What? No!” she exclaimed, apparently genuinely surprised that he’d even think to ask, “I mean, okay, I’ve gotten with her a few times this go around, but she’s not into chicks for more than a little fun now and then. She actually found fucking Donnie again somehow, I’m _never_ gonna get what she sees in that pathetic streak of piss but whatever. He was mourning her for years last time, so at least I know he cares about her like she deserves. No, Lin ain’t it.” She looked up into his eyes as best she could through his shades, her face twisting like she really didn’t want to say what she was about to, and told him, “Johnny, much as I’d like you to tender your resignation by fucking me on this table until we leave a big sloppy mess for your bosses to clean up, there’s something you really gotta know. I got Aisha.”

“You found Eesh,” Johnny said numbly, backing up a step, oblivious to the way her face fell for a second in response before she quickly collected herself again.

“Yeah. Yeah, I did. Have her singing in a nightclub I own, keep the place one-hundred-percent legit so she’s not mixed up in anything even a little shady. Don’t even as much as launder money through it.” She sighed and shifted up onto the table until she was fully sitting on it, though she kept her face carefully blank. “I don’t want to do anything that’d screw things up for you, Gat, and I know she ain’t the type of lady who likes to share.”

Johnny closed his eyes and went still for a long moment before he finally slowly shook his head. “No. No, I don’t think I get her this time around,” he said, and an expression of shocked hope flashed across her face. “Getting to be with Eesh and getting Earth back, those were two different choices, and I made the one I made. Pretty sure I’m not allowed to have both.” Then he noticed the hurt blooming in her expression, controlled so well that only someone who knew her as well as he did would ever have noticed it, and exclaimed, “ _Fuck!_ Fuck, no, that makes it sound like you’re some sorta second choice, and that’s not it. Damn it, Boss, I’m not fucking good at this shit, and all the police sensitivity training shit I’ve had to do hasn’t made me any better.” He strode up to her, grabbed her face between both his hands, and kissed her as fiercely as the first time all over again.

“ _What the fuck, Gat?_ ” Kinzie shouted over the intercom, easily ignored.

When he pulled away he hesitated for just a second before yanking off his sunglasses, letting her see his eyes as he said, “ _I want you._ Not as a replacement for Eesh, not because I can’t have her. I want you just as much as I ever wanted her. Boss, this whole fucking life I’ve just been waiting for you to turn up so I could get right back to my place at your side.”

“Been waiting for me, huh?” she repeated, her eyes bright and warm as she backed further still onto the table, a firm hand at the back of his neck pulling him down toward her, her mouth twisting into a teasing smirk. “Should I take that to mean that when we make that mess I was talking about I’ll be deflowering a virgin?”

“Fuck you, Boss,” he said instead of giving her an answer, which might have been one all on its own.

“That’d be the goal, yeah,” she said with a laugh, then looked over his shoulder and called out, “You two can watch if you _really_ want to, but I’m warning you now, Kinzie, we won’t be getting punchy with each other so you might not get too much out of it.”

“Guys, go pull anything you want to keep off the computers,” Gat said without looking away from her, his last orders as a police Lieutenant. “We’ll be getting out of here and you’ll be coming along for the ride, then I’ll tell you everything that’s going on. You’ll like it, Kinzie, it’s all sort of weird conspiracy theory-style bullshit.”

“I—” Kinzie started over the intercom, then there was a long pause before she said, “We’re putting a lot of faith in you here, Lieutenant. A _lot_. It better not be just because you want to screw a perp.”

“Trust me, Kinzie, Matt, give it a few days and you’ll be willing to follow her to the end of the universe. You already fucking have.”

Then he lost any interest in whether or not they followed his instructions when her fingers shimmied their way up under his shirt, revealing the Saints purple undershirt beneath, and she beamed like it was Christmas day. “Theeeerrre we go,” she purred out with satisfaction. “Still a Saint at the core.”

“Didn’t I make it clear enough already, Boss?” He pressed her back onto the table, murmuring a breath away from her lips, “I’ve always been your man,” before closing that last bit of distance between them.

If he could have his way there’d never be any again.


End file.
